A spotter's guide to the angels of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is by definition numinous, and this book is luminous, too, simple and bright (the flap of magnificent pinions being only implied). Jones orders and grades his sublime messengers, angeldom being more hierarchical than the BBC, considers their non-genders and job assignments – from the blast of a trumpet at the end of the world to guardianship of a human soul. He is polite about greetings cards, tombstones and new age flapdoodle, drily funny in a donnish manner. I can now name the seven ranks as banded by Enoch (cherubim, seraphim, ofanim – wheels, since you ask – angels of power, the messiah and elemental powers), but was most delighted by Paul Klee's sketch of a forgetful angel, and the oldest of the Biblical references, the visitation to Abraham and Sarah. Three quiet unknowns walked out of a dazzle of sunlight with extraordinary news, the origin of the blessed idea of kindness to strangers – you might be entertaining angels unawares.